The Supreme Court rightly affirmed their right to practice their religion in the early 90s but the practitioners of Afro-Caribbean diaspora religions like Santeria still face persecution by state authorities who continue to operate under now discredited beliefs propagated by “occult experts” with little formal training in Comparative Religion. The results of this miseducation often look something like this.
Now one Santeria priest is fighting back against the abuse of the Santeria community by an overzealous and misinformed state government:
A Santeria priest who took Hialeah’s ban of animal sacrifice to the U.S. Supreme Court — and won — is taking on another local city: Coral Gables.
Ernesto Pichardo, president of the Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, has been trying for almost a year to obtain records relating to the interruption of a Santeria ceremony by police last summer.
An attorney he recently hired, David Aelion, has filed a public records request for any documents relating to the incident, which took place June 8. Aelion has requested all the incident reports, any internal investigations reports and communications between officers the day of the incident, as well as photographs taken at the scene, inventory reports and all city communications referring to the scene.
”We want to find out why they were there for quite a few hours holding them [the practitioners] against their will,” Aelion told The Miami Herald Friday.
“It is pretty clear that the U.S. Supreme Court allows them to practice their religion freely. Why did it take many officers and that long to find out that they had no right to be there and no right to bother them?”
He said he was preparing for a possible civil rights violation case.
”We’re not jumping into whether or not there is a civil rights violation until we actually see the documents and see what happened,” Aelion said. “But there certainly could have been.”
That June afternoon, Santeria priest Jesús Suarez was performing a priesthood ceremony — one of the religion’s most sacred, which includes the sacrifice of several animals — at the home of Noriel Batista in the 1800 block of Casilla Street.
After reportedly getting a complaint from a neighbor who said they could hear the animals suffer, officers reported to the home ”guns drawn,” Pichardo and Batista said.
In all, about two dozen officers reported to the home and desecrated the holy space, the priests said.
Their attorney said in a statement that the police department’s “aggressive response and extended stay at the Suarez home regarding this incident rocked the Santeria community of the United States, who had come to believe that the 1993 United States Supreme Court opinion protecting their religious right actually meant something.”
The public records request was filed earlier this month. The city has not yet provided any.
City Attorney Elizabeth Hernandez, reached on her cellphone while on vacation in North Carolina on Friday, said her office routinely handled public records requests and furnished records as required by state law. She did not have the file with her, but said she believed some of the records Pichardo asked for were legally excludable.
Aelion said, however, that the city was intentionally blocking the records.
”The things they are saying is excludable are absolutely open public records and we have every right to them,” the attorney said. “That’s why they hired me. The city is going to have to comply and if they don’t we’ll be filing suit against them.”
Needless to say this is one case of religious discrimination C.A.I.R. won’t be yelping about. Since according to Islamic tradition Santeria would be pagans and unbelievers, the fundamentalist Muslim would be technically forced to wage war against them until they accept Allah.
But Islamism isn’t the kind of fundamentalism on the attack in Florida as the comments on the Miami Herald web page prove. Comments like this one:
What a bunch of cruel idiots. What kind of religion continues to kill animals for the sake of idolatry? Our supreme court allows them to do it? What happened to cruelty to animals laws? The good God Almighty, please help these poor animals, for you people are doing something you should not be doing.
Posted by: Rusty
# 5/25/2008 8:56 AM
I’ll assume “Rusty” is also a vegetarian, or else the above comment would be text book hypocrisy. But “Rusty” isn’t the only anti-Santeria voice there:
This is nothing short of Satanic worshipping. Only Satan demands animal sacrifices. Evil all around. Legal? yes; “Holy,?” HELL NO!!
Posted by: MiamiChico1
5/25/2008 10:57 AM
Something tells me that’s the sort of attitude that led to the incident in question. Those that practice Santeria are definitely not Satanists, and while I won’t bore you with a lecture on the history of the history of African diaspora religious traditions I would recommend anyone wanting real hard information on Santeria or any other religion in America read the book America: Religion and Religions by Catherine Albanese. It is the bible of comparative religion and has several chapters dedicated to explaining the history of both Santeria and like religions as well as the various occult traditions that borrow from them.
Maybe I’ll send my copy to the police force of Coral Gables.
h/t The Wild Hunt